You Don’t Have to Have Full Blown Anxiety to Feel the Effects
Aug 31, 2011 | Posted by Amber Quartermain in Mental and Emotional Health | 0 Comments
I’ve seen people experience anxiety attacks first hand, so when people used to tell me they had anxiety, I always assumed it was this extreme illness that you would definitely know you had. I didn’t realize there are mild forms of anxiety that can sneak up on you and affect you so slightly that you can’t even pinpoint what is wrong.
The mild version goes a bit like this: you know when you leave the driveway and you feel like you left the oven on or the garage door open? It’s that hovering feeling of doom that won’t go away, except in the case of anxiety; you have absolutely no reason to be concerned at that point in time, so instead you sit there confused as to why you’re worrying in the first place!
It took me awhile to identify exactly what I was experiencing, but once I realized it was anxiety, I was able to deal with it. I figured out that I no longer took the time to relax, i.e. “me time”, and now looking back at my calendar, I realize I had something booked every weekend and nearly every night of the week – not a lot of time to de-stress! Another factor was that I had stopped working out – probably one of the best stress relievers of all time! Once I got back to the gym and started taking a few nights a week to just stay home and relax, the looming clouds of anxiety seemed to float away.